s seen the tragedy of Cato. Let him be
answered, that Addison speaks the language of poets, and Shakespeare of
men. We find in Cato innumerable beauties, which enamour us of its
author, but we see nothing that acquaints us with human sentiments or
human actions; we place it with the fairest and the noblest progeny
which judgment propagates by conjunction with learning; but Othello is
the vigorous and vivacious offspring of observation impregnated by
genius. Cato affords a splendid exhibition of artificial and fictitious
manners, and delivers just and noble sentiments, in diction easy,
elevated, and harmonious, but its hopes and fears communicate no
vibration to the heart; the composition refers us only to the writer; we
pronounce the name of Cato, but we think on Addison.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed
and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers;
the composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend their
branches, and pines tower in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds
and brambles, and sometimes giving shelter to myrtles and to roses;
filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless
diversity. Other poets display cabinets of precious rarities, minutely
finished, wrought into shape, and polished into brightness. Shakespeare
opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty,
though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with
a mass of meaner minerals.

It has been much disputed, whether Shakespeare owed his excellence to
his own native force, or whether he had the common helps of scholastick
education, the precepts of critical science, and the examples of ancient
authors.

There has always prevailed a tradition, that Shakespeare wanted
learning, that he had no regular education, nor much skill in the dead
languages. Jonson, his friend, affirms, that "he had small Latin and
less Greek;" who, besides that he had no imaginable temptation to
falsehood, wrote at a time when the character and acquisitions of
Shakespeare were known to multitudes. His evidence ought, therefore, to
decide the controversy, unless some testimony of equal force could be
opposed[12].

Some have imagined, that they have discovered deep learning in many
imitations of old writers; but the examples which I have known urged
were drawn from books translated in his time; or were such easy
coincidences of tho